All Rise...

The Charge

"Spy you later!"—Duck

The Case

Blue's Clues set the standard for puzzle games on television.
Arguably, the "Where's Waldo?" series was the most successful
precursor, but the pleasant adventures of Steve and his yappy two-dimensional
dog were the real ratings—and licensing—powerhouse for this
generation of toddlers.

Now comes I Spy, based on a plotless series of puzzle books from
Scholastic. Developed for HBO Family, the series features cheap stop-motion
animation chronicling the adventures of Spyler, an irritating plasticine
character with a green tennis ball for a head. Charging about his junkyard
playground like the hydrocephalic grandson of Gumby (he even has an orange
sidekick, a dog-thing named CeCe), Spyler forages among the stray dice, bits of
yarn, and dancing dominos (!) that make up his world in search of items under
the orders of a yellow duck on mag wheels.

After each discovery, Spyler and CeCe scream at the audience: "Whoop!
We found it! Whoop! We found it! Whoop! We found it! How about you?!" You
can try this yourself at home. Flail your arms until you sustain injury, and
screech in the most shrill and grating voice you can muster, like a cross
between a hyena and Roseanne singing the national anthem. Try it with me.

"Whoop! We found it! Whoop! We found it! Whoop! We found it! How about
you?!"

Now do it louder.

Now make it hurt.

Okay, you are about halfway there. Add off-key electronic music, and you
begin to have some idea of how annoying this is. I Spy seems calculated
less to educate children than to frighten them. Other musical numbers sprinkled
throughout the show are mercifully short, but just as terrifying. Maybe there is
just something to Spyler's voice that gives me headaches, like that guy who used
to get seizures when he heard Mary Hart's voice on Entertainment Tonight.
Oddly, Spyler's voice on the Spanish language track on this show is less
annoying. After a while, I turned on the closed captioning (there are no
subtitles) and listened to the Spanish version. My headache started to
subside.

Over the course of these two discs, I Spy: A Mumble Monster Mystery
and I Spy: A Runaway Robot, we are treated—or subjected—to
six episodes of the HBO Family series. Watch Spyler and CeCe build their own
bicycle, hunt a slightly melted version of Cousin It (the titular Mumble
Monster), build a maladjusted robot, and even plan a circus act. Kids at home
are expected to find the objects in a scene before Spyler and CeCe do, but often
the required objects make little sense. To go stargazing, for instance, Spyler
and CeCe are told by their cruel duck master to get a cardboard toilet paper
tube (for a lensless telescope), a blanket, a guitar—and a baseball
glove?

Scholastic includes a five-minute promotional piece billed as a
"message for parents" on each disc. In self-congratulatory interviews,
the producers of I Spy claim that their show "brings up the fun
meter" by depicting a child's world on screen. Perhaps if your child
screams constantly, bangs on everything, and requires large doses of
Ritalin.

Give us your feedback!

Did we give I Spy: A Runaway Robot And Other Stories / I Spy: A Mumble Monster Mystery And Other Stories a fair trial? yes / no

What's "fair"? Whether positive or negative, our reviews should be unbiased, informative, and critique the material on its own merits.